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Packard, Frank L. (Frank Lucius), 1877-1942

"The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale"


"Jimmie--Jimmie--" It was scrawled in haste, only a few lines. His eyes
travelled rapidly over the words, and suddenly his breath came fast.
"My God!" he cried out sharply.
As though he could not have read aright, he read again; disjointed words
and phrases muttered audibly: "... Afraid not in time ... hurry ... this
afternoon ... the Magpie and Virat ... Kenleigh, insurance broker ...
safe in Kenleigh's house ... ground floor--left ... one hundred thousand
dollars ... bonds ... will try it ... Meighan of headquarters ...
half-past one at Virat's ... Gray Seal ... Larry the Bat ... if
dangerous, keep away ..."
One glance around the room Jimmie Dale gave instinctively; and then he
was crawling through the window, and, outside, regaining his feet, he
darted across the yard, and out into the lane. Kenleigh, the insurance
broker--he repeated the address she had given in the note over to
himself. It was an apartment house on Avenue near Washington Square.
He ran on, as he had come, through lane and alley, working his way out
of the Bad Lands. It was dangerous, of coarse, in any case, but once
clear of that section of the city which houses the underworld, his risk
of discovery was greatly minimised, since, though familiar to every
denizen of gangland, Larry the Bat was naturally not the same intimate
figure in the more law-abiding and respectable districts; and he should,
except for an extraordinary piece of bad luck, pass in the quarters he
was now heading for as no more than exactly what his appearance
proclaimed him to be--a disreputable and seedy vagrant.


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